


Bring Me That October Feeling

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Humor, Child Loss, Explicit Language, F/M, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Road Trips, Side Effects of Being Dead, by definition this pairing has squeamish elements, fall - Freeform, mention of child loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:32:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26842195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: Fall's settling in across the good ol' U.S. of A. Laura's starting to think there isn't actually a solution to her mountain's worth of problems. Yet, here she still is: stomping around with Sweeney, smoking like a freight train, and trying to see if either of their luck is going to change.
Relationships: Laura Moon & Mad Sweeney, Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	1. Week One

They’re halfway through a mostly empty field when his boot goes straight through the center of a rotting orange vegetable. He swears—of course—and spends an embarrassing amount of time trying to extricate himself before Laura gets fed up and kicks at his foot to dislodge the squash. He mutters to himself while he wipes seeds from the side of his shoe onto the surrounding vegetation, irritation in every line of his body.

“Got something to say, ginger minge?” Laura snarls, the roll of her eyes nearly audible. “Don’t see why you’d stop speaking your mind now.”

Sweeney grumbles, but straightens from where he’d been hunched over, one hand braced on his knee. “Don’t see why we’ve got to be hiking through the fucking bush when there’s perfectly sensible roads to be traveling.”

“Wasn’t it you who said the new gods own the roads?” She rolls her eyes and turns her back to him, continuing on across the fields. “I’m just following your directions.”

He keeps grumbling as they continue on their merry way, but there’s a resignation in his tone that takes the edge off the words. What words are in English, that is. She’s learned that he defaults to his Irish roots when he’s particularly emotional, and when he’s muttering without the heat of rage the words meander between the languages like a winding trail in the woods. It’s comforting in a way. Without all the bluster his voice is oddly soothing—full of gravel that reminds her of Tom Waits and some kind of melody that she’s pretty sure is just  _ life _ . She’s never going to tell him, but when he’s calm she could listen to him read the phone book just to have that voice in her ears reminding her what it is to be alive.

Laura’s not really sure where they’re going. Any semblance of a plan died long ago, and now they’re aimless, wandering the American wastes like nomads of generations long past. They steal cars from time to time, but even the sturdiest of vehicles never hold up long against Sweeney’s rotten luck for long. Sooner or later they always end up back on their feet wandering across the country. Sometimes they find their way to towns, like the little rural community that’s growing ever larger in the distance. The chill of fall is in the air, and the little town is decked out with banners covered in leaves and pumpkins when they make it to the sidewalks. Another perfect example of Small Town America.

Hustling pool in the town’s one dingy bar yields a pretty decent take and they pass the night in a hotel room that’s actually clean. The bulky TV set and its wobbly antennae pick up some local channel showing old sitcoms all night long, and Laura watches with the same single-minded fasciation she always had for Bewitched and I Dream of Genie when she was a little girl. The stories are familiar, a remnant of a time when her biggest worries were the right kind of juice box and whether or not Nana would let her have three cookies or just the usual two. 

Morning rolls around. A diner on the main drag serves greasy bacon and eggs that shut down her companion’s bitching about his hangover and actually puts him in a good mood. Lingering for a change, they make their way into a packed little flea market style store with beams across the ceiling that Sweeney has to duck to miss. It’s got stuff from floor to ceiling that probably came out of yard sales and estate auctions—things that were probably someone’s treasures before they got tossed out with the changing of the times. 

“What the fuck is that thing?”

She has to crane her neck to see what’s caught his attention, wants to laugh when she finally spots it. It sits on a high shelf, a froth of lavender satin and lace billowing out around it like a cloud. 

“A porcelain doll, dumbass.” She stands on tiptoe to straighten the doll’s skirt where someone’s rucked it up over tiny black patent shoes. “You can’t tell me you’ve never seen one before.”

Sweeney sneers, spits out a couple of swears in Irish, and steps back from the display. “Not like that I haven’t.” He tilts his head to one side and eyes the thing like it might be one of Wednesday’s agents. “Looks like it’s going to come alive and eat my face while I sleep.”

“I could be so lucky. My nana collected them.” She’s not sure why she says it, but the words jump right out, an echo of the feeling still lingering from her night of classic tv. Laura stays up on the balls of her feet for a moment to finish straightening the doll’s clothes. Memories of Nana’s house—the mixing scents of cigarettes and baking cookies, brushing doll hair to pass the time, inventing stories of their lives—flood back to her.

“What the hell did she do with the creepy little buggers?” He’s still in the same spot, staring at the doll like it owes him money.

“She didn’t do anything with them. They were a collection.” Laura drops back down to flat feet and turns to face him, leaning back against the shelves the doll is perched atop. “She kept them on the mantle and in a really nice china cabinet.”

He huffs, fishing about in his pocket for a cigarette and lighter. “People think the Irish are fucked because they drink and believe in fairies, but it’s perfectly normal to have little murder golems in fluffy dresses strewn about the house. Un-fucking-believable.”

“Tell me something,” she hisses, standing back up on her tip-toes to bring the judgmental stare coming from her narrowed eyes as close to his face as possible without physically dragging him down to her level. It hurts like the devil, his dismissal of something that she’s remembering so hard. The irritation in her veins is only partly his fault. The rest is all the empty pit of loss she feels with every breath she doesn’t take. “How long do you have to be in America before being ignorant of something as commonplace as a type of doll makes you a fucking moron?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. She snatches the cigarette from his hand, gestures violently at the multitude of ‘NO SMOKING’ signs all over the shop, and stomps her way straight out the door without looking back. It’s getting harder to control, this creeping rage at things that remind her she’s dead. She lights the cigarette the moment her feet hit sidewalk and slumps to the cold concrete. Even when she wasn’t a walking corpse she would have thought she was overreacting. Pregnant women don’t have the kind of flips in mood that plague her whenever they leave the wilderness and find themselves in some version of civilization. They creep up on her when she’s least expecting it, and they’re happening more often as her limbs get stiff and her insides slosh about. She’s deteriorating like she’s not still walking around, and the creak and groan of every numb movement is a spark against an unending supply of angry kindling. 

Laura doesn’t want this, wants to live the life she squandered before. Across the street a local grocer has set up a booth of fall favorites outside his shop. There’s fresh cider in dispensers and warm pies atop the faded gingham cloth over a folding table. She wants to breathe deep and catch the scents on the breeze that drifts over the pavement, to trade a few bills with the grocer and fill herself with cinnamon and sugar, apples and pumpkin. But she can’t. She’s dead. She can’t smell for shit and everything tastes like ash. The fixes she’s found have either been temporary or outright lies, so she’s here tooling about the country with a fucking leprachaun that drives her nuts with jealousy (and want) over the sheer audacity he has to just live with every passing breath. Maddening.

“What is it with this time of year and the fucking cinnamon?” 

His shadow falls over her when the door of the shop swings shut, tall and looming. She doesn’t look up, still staring at the table across the way and thinking of a time when her mouth would have watered in anticipation. A plastic bag crinkles when it lands on the concrete by her hip, the contents slumping against her when his massive hand releases the handles. She tears her eyes away and looks down, dragging smoke in from the cigarette hanging between her fingers. The doll’s blonde hair and pastel hat peak over the top of the plastic, damning evidence that the brute sees more than he admits. His coin thrums from somewhere beneath her ribs, a pulse of warmth radiating through the nothingness that had overtaken her only seconds before.

“It’s fall, dipshit,” she grumbles, but there’s no heat in the words. She’s riding the high of the brief throb of life his magic gave her, memorizing the scent of cinnamon and the feel of the crisp autumn air against her cheek. It’s gone before she exhales, but the warm and fuzzies of having a little treasure to hold on to lingers even as the thrum of life recedes once more. “Deal with it.”


	2. Week Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kids love Sweeney, and it is the weirdest fucking thing that Laura has ever seen. 

Kids love Sweeney, and it is the weirdest fucking thing that Laura has ever seen. 

The first time it happens they’re in a grocery store to fill a basket with whatever nutritionless crap he plans to stuff down his throat. She’s barely paying attention until she registers that he’s stopped talking at her in favor of actually talking with somebody else. There’s a toddler in the baby seat of a cart on the other side of a wide table of day-old baked goods and she’s babbling happily at the ginger giant in that half-speech way that babies just learning to talk always do. Sweeney doesn’t even miss a beat, and he’s babbling right back in a soft, doting tone that’s completely at odds with the still-healing cuts across his cheek from a bar brawl the night before. The kid’s mom—understandably—rushes away as soon as she gets a good look at the beast that’s caught her daughter’s eye, but Sweeney doesn’t get grumpy like Laura expects. No, he fucking beams at the kid as Karen von Minivan hurries away, waggling his fingers in a little wave that makes the girl giggle.

It keeps happening. Seems like children are everywhere as the month of Halloween really finds its stride. A ten-year-old at a fast food joint offers him a few fries. Another (whose dad really shouldn’t have brought them to the smoky bar of the night) kicks his ass at darts and Sweeney doesn’t even complain as he pays up the five bucks he bet on his own prowess. They ride in the back of a pick-up for an hour with three farmer’s sons that stare in wonder at the leprechaun's ‘magic tricks’ and beg him to teach them. She’s enthralled and mildly terrified because of all the people that kids shouldn’t love that fucking moron is right at the top of the list. She has to fight not to make shitty comments where the kids can hear, and she fights even harder not to let herself admit that as much as she’s weirded out she’s also completely charmed by the whole scenario.

The final straw for Laura keeping her mouth shut comes as they’re walking through a brightly lit harvest festival just after sunset one night. Most of the kid friendly games are shutting down, and a vendor is setting up a table for beer that she’s sure Sweeney will head straight for when a tiny little thing appears between them, all red-faced sniffling like a pneumonia patient.

“‘Scuse me, Mister?” The girl can’t be more than six, blonde hair braided into sweet little pigtails with bright red ribbons tied into bows on the end. Even dangling at his side his hand is too far out of the girl’s reach, so she tugs at the leg of his jeans instead.

“Well now,” Sweeney begins, tossing the cigarette he’s just lit away without a second thought. He crouches, folding all the long length of him down so he’s closer to the girl’s eye. Even with one knee on the ground and his back hunched over he’s still a foot taller. “What’s got those big brown eyes full of tears, a stóirín?”

She sniffles again, that little face wobbling for a second, then bursts into animated sobs and just launches herself into his arms. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” Laura scoffs, unable to keep the incredulous look off her face. Sweeney lifts the hand he’s been using to pat the kid’s back just long enough to flip her off and give her a sneer of his own before all his attention is right back on the girl. He shushes her gently, murmuring something too quiet for Laura to hear until she finally stops sobbing long enough to get some words out.

“I can’t find Mommy!” she wails, and Laura doesn’t know how Sweeney isn’t wincing at the pitch and volume. 

“Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem at all,” Sweeney assures her. His accent is thicker than Laura’s ever heard it apart from when he’s so blindingly drunk he practically forgets he can speak English. “Can ye remember what yer mum was wearin’?” The girl leans back enough to look at him again and nods, scrubbing one long sleeve under her nose. “So, if I put ye up on my shoulders where so you can see over the crowd you should be able to point her out.” He smiles and the girl nods back at him in return. “Now, before we get to business why don’t you tell me your name.”

“Macy,” she tells him, and Laura can see the gap of a missing tooth in her smile.

“Alright, Macy.” Sweeney swipes his thumbs over the girl’s cheeks to wipe away her tears and hooks one long arm around her back. “You just wrap your paws around my neck and hold on tight, okay?”

With an ease that belies the centuries he’s supposedly been wandering the earth he hoists the girl and straightens to his full, impressive height. Little Macy gives a giggle as she shoots upwards with him, both hands clenched tight in the fabric of his shirt. Sweeney turns in a slow, full circle, gently asking leading questions about what the girl’s mom looks like while he helps her look. They barely turn halfway before she’s been spotted, and Sweeney flags the frantic woman down. She’s so grateful to get her daughter back safe and sound that she doesn’t even balk at his black eye or the lit cigarette Laura’s still puffing on. 

“Thank you so much for looking out for her,” the woman chatters as she’s taking Macy from Sweeney’s arms. “It’s just so easy to get separated in these crowds.”

Sweeney trades a few snippets of conversation with the woman and it’s easily the most normal Laura has ever seen him. He’s charming and personable, turning that soft smile on the kid frequently. Laura just smokes while she watches them, trying to figure out when the grumpy, irritable bastard learned to get the attention of people that weren’t his usual coked-up bar flys. She’s so intent on watching him that she almost misses the woman’s parting words.

“I’m sure you and the missus will be wonderful parents some day!” She’s gone before Laura can formulate a response, disappearing into the crowd with little Macy in her arms. Instead of making some smartass comment like Laura might have expected Sweeney just watches them go, idly rolling up another cigarette. Laura manages to wait until he strikes a match to light it up before she can’t keep quiet any longer.

“Okay, what the fuck?” He’s not looking at her, gaze still focused on the crowd as he uses his extra height to keep an eye on the retreating mother and child. “What is up with this father of the year act you’ve got going every time there’s a kid around?”

He takes a long drag from his cigarette, and when he speaks again there’s a tired roughness to his voice. “Not now, dead wife. I was in a good mood.”

“Your mood means jack shit to me,” she insists, stomping after him when he sets off down the street. She has to bob and weave through the crowd while people get out of Sweeney’s way on their own, but she’s used to keeping track of him now. He doesn’t slow down until they’re well past the festival and ducking into another seedy bar, and even then it’s only so he can demand an entire bottle of Southern Comfort from the bartender before he sets off for a corner booth. Laura settles in on the other side of the table from him, unwinding the strap of her oversized purse from around her torso, digs out her Virginia Slims, lights one up, and waits. He never can stay quiet for long.

“I had one of me own,” he tells her nearly an hour later after he’s sworn a blue streak and smoked six cigarettes, his second fifth of whiskey clutched tight in one hand. 

They’re going to be out of money quick if this keeps up, but Laura’s too interested in whatever story he’s about to weave to point it out. “Tell me,” she insists instead.

“My little Moira,” he continues, eyes shining. “Fuck me, she was bonny. Fairer than her mother, and my queen was stunning.” He sniffs and tilts the bottle back, taking a few deep swallows before he goes on. His voice grows rougher and starts to crack. “She had the brightest eyes and hair like spun gold. My little treasure with roses in her cheeks, honey in her voice, and a smile brighter than the sun.” 

“What happened to her, Sweeney?”

He’s not looking at her, his gaze on the past. The bottle tilts back and over half of the liquor within is gone. “I don’t remember,” he admits on half a broken sob, and Laura wishes she’d never asked. “Couldn’t have been much older than wee little Macy when last I saw her.”

Buried deep in Laura’s chest, the golden coin throbs. Unlike that day outside the shop with the doll she’s not hit with warmth and smells and joy. This time it’s sorrow, a bone-deep emotional pain that makes her throat tight and her eyes scratchy. It’s his grief, radiating out through the little metal disc and filling her to the brim. She wonders suddenly, whether it’s always her rage that makes her such a bitch or if a bit of his own has something to do with it. There’s a flash of something in her mind, the briefest image of a little waif of a girl in a tattered dress, her brown hair dusting the tops of her shoulders.

Watching him drink, completely unaware of the tears rolling down his face, Laura thinks of the porcelain doll tucked away in the bottom of the bag beside her. She thinks of delicate features and wispy blonde hair. Perhaps her memories weren’t the only reason Sweeney wanted to keep the thing around. 


End file.
